The Exile and the Scoundrel
by Ampaulson
Summary: The romance of LS female exile and Atton Rand from when they first met on Peragus to just after the end of the game. There will also be bits from their times in the Mandalorian Wars as well. Rated M for bits of lemon, violence, and language. Will try to update once every 2 weeks. Please spam me if I get behind.


**First Impressions**

Atton was beginning to think he was going to die. For the past thirty hours, the scoundrel had been given no food or water ever sense the explosion. Considering all the troubles the injured Jedi had caused, he wouldn't put it past the Peragus miners to allow hunger and thirst to take care of any issues regarding him. Still, Atton was not enjoying the growls from his empty stomach and the dryness from his throat. _If they want to kill me, they should just do it and get it over with._ He thought, licking his dry, cracked lips. No man should die like this. Even back when he was named Jaq, the man would never have allowed a victim to die like that.

The force cage didn't give the human much room, but at least he could sit down, even though his legs had couldn't stretch out or he would get burned. If he were anywhere else in the galaxy, he would have been to lie down and allow his tall, semi muscular frame to be completely unfurled… but not here. At some point Atton knew he would soon start to hallucinate. Even now he was no longer able to notice the empty cage to his right. The bright light between the cages was becoming a haze of light and merged with the ceiling lights to make the grey grated walls look like solid sheets of metal. The really nasty thing was the tiny control console that would release him was still in perfect focus a three feet in front of him. It was like the universe was punishing him for his days back in the Jedi Civil War.

The door opened and everything came back into focus, but Atton was certain it was really something his mind created to make his last moments bearable. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen was entering the room. She was human and roughly five inches shorter than himself with caramel colored s kin. Rich, dark drown hair flowed in thick wavy locks to her shoulders. Emerald green eyes glimmered like stars from her elfin features. Atton guessed her age to be either late twenties or early thirties. The only clothing she wore was the unisex Republic military issue underwear. There weren't even any coverings on her feet, but she was holding a silver vibroblade in her left hand. For some reason, the human female was socking wet, which had the effect of causing her clothes and hair to cling to her skin. There was very little to be left to Atton's imagination as he saw every curve of her slim, but athletic body from the hips to the breasts. There was no possible way this could be really happening.

Deciding to roll with the delusion, Atton smirked his trade marked cocky smile. "Nice outfit. What you miners change regulation uniforms while I was gone?"

The woman walked toward his cage with an almost otherworldly grace. There was no way she could have been a miner. The scoundrel's trained eye could tell she must be some sort of warrior from how centered her walk was, and the way her arms hung from her sides screamed battle readiness. All the more reason for Atton to believe this wasn't really happening.

The human female stopped in front of his cage. "Who are you?"

Atton felt his throat become dryer than Tatooine; something he would have thought impossible a few moments ago. Her voice was melodious as if made to hit the male libido like a proton torpedo in the Peragus asteroids. Then again, he could have just been in the force cage too long. Her face was impassive and gave Atton nothing to work with in trying to figure out what she was thinking.

"Atton," he answered. "Atton Rand. Excuse me if I don't shake hands. The field only causes mild electrical burns."

The green-eyed woman locked eyes with him, and Atton couldn't help but feel she was looking right into his soul. Rand was suddenly very uncomfortable. "Care to explain why you're locked up?"

"Security claimed I violated some trumped-up regulation or another." Atton fought to keep himself from permitting his eyes to wonder to her full lips. Why couldn't she just let him out already, so they could get to the good part? "Take it up with them if you want, but they stopped listening to me shortly before they stopped feeding me. Now that's criminal."

A knowing look broke through her impassiveness. The scoundrel couldn't help feeling as though she knew what he was talking about better than he did. Her eyes stopped boring into him, and he felt a breath he didn't even know he was holding escape his lips.

"What is this place?" she inquired with a small gesture with her free hand to indicate the facility.

Atton was taken aback. If this truly was some sort of sexual fantasy his starved and dehydrated mind had come up with, he was sure by now he would be free, and the two of them would be naked and horizontal. Also, he doubted they would be talking about things he already knew about. This could only mean one thing. The beautiful woman in front of him was real. Someone or force in the universe really liked him.

Getting a hold of himself, the caged man responded, "You mean you didn't come here on purpose? I'm shocked. I really am."

It was true. Rand was shocked, but now wasn't the time to try and figure out how the woman before him had no idea where she was. Then again this wasn't the place many people would willingly come to either.

"This slice of paradise is the Peragus mining facility," the scoundrel continued. "The only supplier of shipping-grade engine fuel to this corner of the galaxy. Peragus fuel plays havoc with the engines, but it gets the job done…As long as you don't mind the toxic byproducts and trying to mine it without blowing yourself up."

"Blowing yourself up?" the other inquired, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah this asteroid belt is one giant minefield," Atton explained, trying not to think about how her hair was clinging to the side of her face. "One proton torpedo, even a stray blaster shot, can start an explosion that'll make the one that shattered Peragus II look like a kid's pop detonator."

"Peragus II?"

Atton tried to keep the expiration out of his voice. He was getting really tired of being an exposition dump, but Rand needed this woman to trust him. "You know the planet with the exposed core you saw flying in? That hole was caused by the first mining station that tried to siphon fuel off the planet. Blew a whole chunk out of the planet, and set it drifting out here in a big clump of fuel-cooled asteroids. So all the miners drill the asteroids not, now the planet's surface. That's why they don't allow blasters here. Can't trust a miner jumped up on juma juice not to fire one stray shot that will turn the entire colony into a thermal detonator."

The female human stepped toward the control console for the force cages with a dancer's grace that made Rand's pants feel tighter than they had in a long time. "The facility's deserted. What happened?"

The scoundrel had to struggle to pay attention to her question. "You mean before or after that Jedi showed up? Either way, it's a real short story."

The woman motioned for him to go on, and the man complied. "You see this Jedi shows up, and you know what that means- where there's one Jedi, the Republic will soon be crawling up your ion engine in no time. But the story gets better. See, some of the miners get it into their ferrocrate skulls that since the Jedi is unconscious, they can collect the bounty the Exchange has posted for live Jedi. Well, what passes for the law here didn't like that idea, so the two groups started fighting. Then there was some big explosion. I was sitting here for a long time. Then you showed up in your underwear and things got a lot better."

It took Atton a few seconds before he realized that last sentence has escaped his mouth. He was thinking it sure, but he didn't intend to say it. The last thing he wanted was for her to think of him as someone she should leave to die. However, the look on the woman's face didn't seem to register the last comment. Instead, she clenched her free hand into a fist and her face wore a shadow of an expression of grief and remorse. Her body, however, showed no connection to her feelings. The caged man couldn't help but think she was contemplating on something horrible she had seen. Something about it sparked something in Atton's memory, but he wasn't able to place what or why.

The woman shook her head and relaxed her body. The shadow was gone and replaced with the semi-impassive facial expression as before. Whatever had been going through her head, she was back in the here and now.

She looked at Rand again. "There's a bounty on captured Jedi? Why?"

Atton shrugged. "Don't know much about it. Maybe the Exchange wants one as a trophy, or somebody's got something against Jedi and is looking to collect. Not many Jedi left… wouldn't surprise me if the bounty is pretty high."

"The Exchange is trying to kill Jedi," she asked, more to herself than Atton. "Did the Exchange wipe them all out?"

"I doubt it," Atton said, more to get her attention back on him than any other reason. "No, it was the war that thinned the Jedi, not the Exchange. The ones that weren't killed in the Jedi Civil War ended up switching off the lightsabers long ago. Word is, there's not even a Jedi Council anymore, but who knows?"

The female human's eyes narrowed, and her voice became hard. "The stories I heard were of the Sith, not the Jedi."

The way she said I made a shiver go down Atton's spine. "Yeah, Revan, Malak and the Jedi that went to join them in the Mandalorian Wars. They turned against the other Jedi and had a scrap that almost laid waste to the galaxy."

This wasn't entirely true. There was one Jedi who didn't join Revan, but Atton was unsure if she became a Sith or not. The Jedi who was Revan's left hand as Malak was his right. Atton, back when he was Jaq, had never heard her complete name, but he knew what everyone called her: The Destroyer of Malachor V. No one knew what happened to her, but the troops who served directly under her had fought with the Republic. One of Jaq's first missions from Revan was to kill the high-ranking officers from her unit. However, those were things Atton Rand could not have known, so there was no point in saying them.

The beautiful woman's face told Atton this was new information, so he asked, "Heh. Where have you been?"

A far away look came over her eyes. After a few seconds, she answered, "I've been…away since the Mandalorian Wars."

The way she said those words told Atton she wouldn't tell him any more, so he chose to change the subject. After all, the scoundrel intended to get to know her a lot better over a few bottles of juma once they were far away from Peragus. "Well, I wasn't there, but like all Sith, Revan and Malak turned on each other. After they turned on the Jedi of course."

"I was led to believe that Revan saved the Jedi," she said with a small note of hope in her voice, "and the Republic."

"I guess," Atton replied, even though he himself didn't believe those rumors. His memories of Revan didn't fit with them. "There's rumors all over space about it. All I heard was Revan returned to pay Malak back for trying to kill her in the first place. You know women."

The look she gave him was one of confusion and concern. "How long have you been in that cage? Revan was a man, not a woman."

Atton couldn't help but feel like a fool. Of course Rand knew Revan was a man. Jaq had been a trusted solider of both Malak and Revan. Looking at the beauty in front of him was playing havoc with his thoughts, and it was getting to the point where his internal thoughts and those he could voice were intermingling. Then again, he wasn't Jaq anymore. He was Atton Rand now, and Atton had never met the two fallen Jedi.

"Maybe your right," Atton said trying to play it off as a joke. "Maybe I just hoped Revan was a woman."

Atton's ploy worked. A small giggle escaped her lips and a smile bloomed on her face. The smile caused her face to light up like a supernova, and she looked a hundred times more attractive. In that moment, he knew that there was nothing in the universe he wanted more than to always see her smiling.

Once the giggle was over, she stated, "I had some more questions for you."

The scoundrel was having none of it. He needed to get out of the force cage. He needed to get closer to her. He needed to touch her. "Look not like your half-naked interrogation isn't a personally fantasy of mine, but…"

Before Atton could finish his sentence, everything clicked into place. He would have figured it out sooner, but, circumstances being as they were, his mind was not thinking as clearly as it normally would. The woman before him wasn't a miner. To his knowledge, the only ship that had docked in the past several days was the Ebon Hawk. The wetness about her had the telltale bluish tint of kolto healing liquid instead of regular water. A female Jedi was found badly wounded and unconscious on the Ebon Hawk and put in a kolto tank.

"Hey, wait a minute," Instinctively, Atton started to play pazaak in his head. The last thing he wanted was for her to know the thoughts he was thinking about her. "You're that Jedi the miners were talking about. Where is everybody?"

"I'm not a Jedi." The Jedi's face lost all trace of the light her giggle had created. "I don't know. This facility seems abandoned."

"They can't all be gone," the caged man whispered to himself.

"Look," Atton addressed the Jedi. "Hey, let me out, and I can help you."

"I can," he insisted, as her face remained impassive. "I've gotten out of trouble countless times."

"Tell me the plan." The woman's free hand moved toward the release controls to his cage. "And we can go from there."

"This facility isn't a military installation, which means we may have a chance." The caged man explained, "You shut down this cell's security field, and I can reroute the emergency systems so we can get to the hanger. We grab a ship and then we fly out of here."

"I trust you." The Jedi entered the shut down command for the security field. "And if we work together, we may be able to get out of this mess."

The scoundrel couldn't help but smile at her words. He had no doubt they would escape and was very much looking forward to spending a long trip alone in a ship with her. Within seconds, the energy field had vanished. Much to Atton's surprise, the woman walked over to his cage with a look of concern on her face.

Before Atton was able to ask what was wrong, the Jedi offered him her unarmed hand. "You look dehydrated. Do you need help walking?"

Rand knew he was still strong enough to walk on his own. However, the Jaq part of him didn't want a Jedi to know his strength and endurance. Also, the idea of being able to touch her without worrying about getting force pushed was also appealing. Instead of taking her hand, Atton pretended to stumble and caught himself on the Jedi's shoulder of the arm without the sword.

"I could use some help." Atton wrapped an arm around her shoulder and leaned part of his body weight against her. "I've had no water for at least thirty hours."

"There's some water in the medical office." The Jedi used her free hand to help support him. "While you're slicing the system, I'll get it for you."

Atton nodded, trying to ignore how soft her skin felt. "May I have your name, master Jedi?"

"I'm not a Jedi," she snapped as the two headed out of the detention room. "And my name is Aria."


End file.
